Twilight in Eden

The sun set over paradise and the garden glowed purple in twilight. Eve sat beneath the iridescent glow of the waterfall, and let the noise echo the tears that ached like a reservoir bursting inside her chest.

She knew what she had done. She knew it would cost her everything. And the last night of paradise was a bitter gall that went down like river creek stones settling inside her heart.

Adam couldn’t face her either. His hard words sliced her like a razor and she stood aghast at a darkness in his heart that she could not understand, and neither could he. And so he fled and hid himself from her. For it is good for man to be alone, he snarled with a hardness she had never seen.

And he ran and ran to find the end of the earth to swallow him up from her, for he had sinned.

And so she sat, alone. Completely alone. And suddenly, the world was a cold and dirty place. And for the first time, she shivered. That was when she found the fig leaves and longed for them to hide her.

“I cannot face myself tonight,” she said. She frantically plucked the leaves from the branches, and then buried herself under them, comforted by the darkness and the protection it offered her soul.

“I have sinned,” said she. “And the judgment of God awaits me, and it is a great and terrible wrath I shall face.”